Windows 11 ARM ISO now available for download from Microsoft

[Technogeezer]

Microsoft came through with their "promise".

You can now download an official Microsoft Windows 11 ARM installation ISO from the following Microsoft website:  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11arm64

I'll update this thread over the weekend with guidance on how to use this ISO to install Windows 11 ARM in a Fusion VM.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Technogeezer]

I've successfully installed both Windows 11 ARM Home and Professional editions from the ISO downloaded from Microsoft. 

Here are some notes to help you use the Microsoft ISO media for an initial installation of Windows 11 ARM. (Scroll forward to a later reply to this thread for advice on using this ISO to upgrade an existing 23H2 VM to 24H2).

Either drag/drop of the Microsoft ISO onto Fusion's "Select the installation method" dialog, or creating a custom Windows 11 64-bit Arm VM and assigning the ISO to the CD/DVD drive works. The ISO is correctly identified as Windows 11 ARM. The remaining steps in the new virtual machine wizard are the same as if you used an ISO build from Fusion's "Get Windows from Microsoft" feature.

The Windows 11 ARM ISO downloaded from Microsoft's web site does not contain the VMware network driver. Prior to Windows 11 24H2 this would have meant opening a command prompt to manually install VMware Tools. With Windows 11 24H2, Microsoft has changed the Windows Out of Box Experience (OOBE) to recognize that a network hasn't been found and to allow you to install a driver. (Without needing to drop into a command prompt!)

Here's what you'll see and how to respond:

This screen will be displayed when the OOBE does not detect a network:

At this point, go to the Fusion menu bar, and select Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools. Reply to the prompt to connect the VMware Tools installer CD to the virtual machine. Wait a couple of seconds (about 20-30 should do) in order for the Tools installer to mount in the VM.

Return to the VM and click the "Install Driver" button in the "Let's connect you to a network" dialog.

You should now see this:

Double click on "DVD Drive (D:) VMware Tools". You should now see this:

 

Click (one click only, please) on the vmxnet3 folder, then click the "Select Folder" button. You will be returned to the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, and the vmxnet3 VMware network driver will be installed. Wait for the network to become connected as seen here: 

After the network is connected, you can click the "Next" button. Continue answering prompts  to complete the Windows OOBE process.

After the OOBE process completes and you sign into the virtual machine, the VMware Tools installer CD is still mounted to the VM's virtual CD drive. Open File Explorer in the VM, open the D: drive, and double click on "setup.exe" to start the installation of VMware Tools. 

As an option, you can rebuild the Microsoft ISO to include the VMware driver using a script that I wrote. This is similar to what's done with Fusion's "Get Windows from Microsoft" process, but uses the downloaded ISO as a source instead of a Microsoft ESD-formatted file (that's not an ISO). It will eliminate the need for you to through the driver installation process yourself -- since the driver is found on the ISO, it will be installed for you automatically. See https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/viewdocument/script-to-re-master-windows-11-arm?CommunityKey=0c3a2021-5113-4ad1-af9e-018f5da40bc0&tab=librarydocuments if you're interested. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[billearl]

This is great news, and thanks, Paul. When I tried to update a Win 11 Arm 23H2 VM to 24H2, per your instructions, the process started okay, then "checking for updates", then ended with "Windows 11 Setup - There was a problem running preinstall.cmd scripts." I tried rebooting and various other things, but same error. Any ideas?

BTW, the same iso worked fine for updating Win 11 to 24H2 in Parallels.

[Technogeezer]

How were you trying to update that VM? 

The standard way to upgrade is to connect the 24H2 media to the VM's virtual CD drive, then run the setup.exe found on the CD's volume.

I was able to do upgrade my Windows 11 ARM 23H2 to 24H2 in this manner, but I think I used the ISO built from Fusion with the VMware network driver already installed. Let me give the upgrade another try using the Microsoft ISO and see if I can reproduce. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[billearl]

Yes, I connected the CD drive and ran setup.exe as you described (same as I did with Parallels). While you try the Microsoft iso, I'll try to get the iso via Fusion to try.

Later: I downloaded the iso from Fusion, "Windows11_26100.2033_Professional_en-us_arm64", but it resulted in the same error.

[tintin_uk]

Hi,

MacBook Air M2 running Fusion 13.6.1 here and just to say that I was able to upgrade to 24H2 by downloading the new Arm ISO and running it as a virtual image.

It did take more than 1 attempt though: The first time I left the installer to it and came back an hour later to find an 'Install failed' message. Second time worked a charm though. The difference between the 2 attempts was that initally, I used an external drive as backup space which the installer said was required. Before trying again, I cleared some space so the external drive wouldn't be needed. Obviously can't be sure that this is what solved whatever went wrong first time round but worth noting if anyone else has issues.

TT.

[Technogeezer]

I was able to get a 23H2 VM to update to 24H2 using the ISO, but as you say the space requirements can be an issue. In my case I got update to install (like you did) by freeing up space on and expanding the size of the virtual C: drive. I haven't tried using an external drive but will do so. I do plan on trying this upgrade with a second virtual hard drive as my extra space to avoid the potential for a USB drive disconnect during the upgrade process. 

From what I've been reading, the 24H2 upgrade is a "complete OS swap" and not an incremental enablement like 23H2 was over 22H2. It would not surprise me if there were a few warts in Microsoft's upgrade procedure when using an external drive for extra space when requested by the installer. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Technogeezer]

Here's the results of my latest experiment:

23H2 VM with a 64GB virtual hard drive, about 35GB out of the 64GB used.

I added a 40GB second hard drive to the VM (E: drive) . That might have been overkill for space, but I wanted to see just to see how much space it was going to use up.

Started the 24H2 upgrade process by mounting the Microsoft ISO and executing setup.exe from the ISO.

During the upgrade, it asked for more disk space. I pointed to the E: drive.

Result: The upgrade worked fine. About 9GB of disk space was consumed on the E: drive.

I released the space by running the Windows disk cleanup (Settings > Storage, then selecting Cleanup recommendations after the disk space analysis completed) , choosing the advanced options, and removing the previous Windows installation.

Given this experiment, a second drive of somewhere around 15-20 GB should be sufficient to perform the upgrade if the installer is complaining about low on space on the C: drive. Might not be a bad idea to add one to the VM before starting the upgrade in case the installer finds there's not enough space as it's running (will save you some time and aggravation). Also you can delete the second hard drive after you've performed a disk cleanup when up and running on 24H2. 

You also might want to consider taking a snapshot of the VM before starting the upgrade. That way it's easy to roll back if something goes wrong. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[JustDon]

I wanted to thank you for documenting the upgrade procedure from 23H2 to 24H2. It worked great!

Creating the extra volume ahead of time made it easy to select during the actual upgrade process. Disk usage on this newly created volume was about 7GB and the clean up method you described allowed me to remove all traces of this volume/disk once the upgrade was done. No strange behavior during the upgrade itself.

I'm running Sonoma and Fusion 13.6.1 on my MacBook Pro M1 and use a Windows 11 ARM VM for testing PowerShell scripts.

Don

[Technogeezer]

@JustDon glad that you were able to upgrade successfully. Until (and if) Microsoft deems us worthy of offering us the upgrade through Windows Update, using the "manual" method of upgrade using the 24H2 ISO mounted to the 23H2 VM seems to be the best way of upgrading from 23H2 to 24H2 right now.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[alan290]

Hi Paul,

I'm running VMWare 13.6.1 (latest) on a MacBook Pro M3 with Sequoia 15.1.1. A day or two ago, I spotted the Windows Upgrade option now offers 24H2 - so perhaps we have been deemed worthy? 

Sadly, I've run into a different problem while trying to install: I seem to have lost the ability to connect external USB memory keys to my Win11 23H2 virtual machine. If I connect a thumb drive, I no longer get the "where do you want to connect this" dialog box; when I look in VM Settings USB, the list is empty. (There is no issue mounting or seeing them on the host Sequoia side of things).

I also tried to create a new volume, per your method, and although it was created and I could see it in the VM Settings list, I could not add it as an E: drive to the Win11 machine. I think that the Win11 VM has the USB drivers installed (there are a bunch of related lines in the .vmx file inside the .vmwarerm package, and the VM itself shows appropriate devices in the settings) it's just not getting a chance to connect the external devices any more.

I'm not exactly sure when this connectivity loss occurred, but for sure I was able to use external drives "a while ago" and also since originally updating to Sequoia. I have tried all the usual suspects: disabling BitDefender, fully exiting and restarting VMware Fusion, removing and re-installing the Tools (including the workaround of downloading and mounting the "darwin" CD-ROM to try the frozen version).

I suspect something has changed in the MacOS security settings, but can't figure out what (I have "full disk access" enabled for Fusion, but don't see anything for "external drives access" on any of the privacy and security settings pages). I have a test Linux VM as well, and it shows nothing either when I gave that a try.

Sorry for such a long tale of woe, and for potentially hijacking this 24H2 upgrade thread with a different issue... but I'd appreciate any help, pointers, advice, encouragement you may have to offer!

Regards, alan 

[Technogeezer]

I've just tried to attach a USB stick to my Win 11 ARM 24H2 VM (that was upgraded from 23H2) running on Fusion 13.6.1/macOS 15.1.1. No problems. 

VMware Tools has nothing to do with USB device recognition. It doesn't have a USB controller driver. The driver for the USB controller presented to the VM by Fusion is Microsoft's out-of-the-box XHCI driver.  You say you re-installed VMware Tools - I hope you mean in the VM and not the host. VMware Tools are not needed and should never be installed on the Mac host where you're running Fusion.  If you did install them on the host, remove them. And just for sanity's sake, delete and reinstall Fusion. 

My first suspicion is that something is awry with the Fusion USB arbitration service. Check to see if it is running. Drop into a Terminal and run the following:

me@mymac ~ % ps -ef | grep vmware-usbarbitrator

the output should look something like this if the service is running:

   0 78796     1   0  5:06PM ??         0:00.28 /Library/Application Support/VMware/VMware Fusion/Services/Contents/Library/vmware-usbarbitrator

  501 81716 80559   0  5:55PM ttys000    0:00.01 grep vmware-usbarbitrator

Also see if you can find the USB arbitrator's log files (/Library/Logs/VMware/vmware-usbarb*.log). If you zip those up we can take a look at them and see if there's anything interesting they reveal).

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[alan290]

Hi Paul -

Thanks for your quick response!

>> You say you re-installed VMware Tools - I hope you mean in the VM and not the host. 

Yes, I mean in the VM and not the host (using the Virtual Machine menu, while the Win11 VM was selected, then getting the CD-ROM setup.exe file to run in Windows). I thought it was a forlorn hope, thanks for confirming that USB is not managed by a VM driver.

Here's the ps -ef result:

me@mymac ~ % ps -ef | grep vmware-usbarbitrator

  501  6118  5726   0  8:34am ttys000    0:00.01 grep vmware-usbarbitrator

Which looks to me as if it is not running, as you predicted?

I do not find any USB arbitrator log files in the /Library/Logs hierarchy. I have both a VMWare and a VMware Fusion subdirectory in there (reporting just in case that's not normal). 

Aha! I have found a reference to USB arbitrator in the /Library/Logs/VMware Fusion/vmware-vmwarefusion.log file; there are multiple "USBArbLib: Failed to connect to USB Arbitrator" errors showing:

VMware Fusion USBArbLib: Failed to connect to USB Arbitrator, arbSocketname(/var/run/vmware/usbarb-socket). Error(0x6): Connection error.

I have zipped this file and attached to this post (I hope!).

 

Thanks again for pointing the way. 

Regards, Alan

Attachment(s)

vmware-vmfusion.log.zip   27 KB 1 version

[Technogeezer]

Assuming that the Fusion GUI is not running, this is normal. I forgot to tell you to open the Fusion GUI, then run this command. If the Fusion GUI is running, then what you see in your output is not normal because Fusion starts its background services (including the usb arbitration service) when the GUI starts. 

Let me look at the USB arbitrator logs and see if I can see anything that might give a clue as to what's happening.

The question I have to ask is "what changed between the time that the USB keys worked and now"? Updates to macOS and Fusion should not have caused the usbarbitration service to suddenly stop working.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Technogeezer]

Alan, could you check something for me. I'm seeing a lot of areas where the logs are indicating an error when trying to create a socket in areas that I don't see in the logs on my system. 

Can you post the output of:

sudo ls -alR /var/run/vmware

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[alan290]

First with VMWare NOT RUNNING:

% sudo ls -alR /var/run/vmware

total 0

drwxr-xr-x   5 root  daemon   160  4 Dec 20:13 .

drwxrwxr-x  40 root  daemon  1280  4 Dec 20:13 ..

drwx------   2 alan  staff     64  4 Dec 20:13 501

drwx-wx-wt   2 root  daemon    64  4 Dec 19:56 cnx-tmp

srw-rw-rw-   1 root  daemon     0  4 Dec 19:56 vmnet-bridge

/var/run/vmware/501:

total 0

drwx------  2 alan  staff    64  4 Dec 20:13 .

drwxr-xr-x  5 root  daemon  160  4 Dec 20:13 ..

/var/run/vmware/cnx-tmp:

total 0

drwx-wx-wt  2 root  daemon   64  4 Dec 19:56 .

drwxr-xr-x  5 root  daemon  160  4 Dec 20:13 ..

Second, with VMWare and Win11-23H2 VM RUNNING:

% sudo ls -alR /var/run/vmware

total 0

drwxr-xr-x   6 root  daemon   192  5 Dec 07:33 .

drwxrwxr-x  42 root  daemon  1344  5 Dec 07:33 ..

drwx------   3 alan  staff     96  5 Dec 07:33 501

lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  daemon    35  5 Dec 07:33 7160318a9e2d88763b041a95f27e727d661bfb5fa712a276898dd630c19e0f0f -> /var/run/vmware/501/4976299545_3611

drwx-wx-wt   2 root  daemon    64  5 Dec 07:33 cnx-tmp

srw-rw-rw-   1 root  daemon     0  5 Dec 07:33 vmnet-bridge

/var/run/vmware/501:

total 0

drwx------  3 alan  staff    96  5 Dec 07:33 .

drwxr-xr-x  6 root  daemon  192  5 Dec 07:33 ..

drwxr-xr-x  7 alan  staff   224  5 Dec 07:33 4976299545_3611

/var/run/vmware/501/4976299545_3611:

total 0

drwxr-xr-x  7 alan  staff  224  5 Dec 07:33 .

drwx------  3 alan  staff   96  5 Dec 07:33 ..

lrwxr-xr-x  1 alan  staff   83  5 Dec 07:33 configFile -> /Users/alan/Virtual Machines.localized/alanMBProW11ARM.vmwarevm/alanMBProW11ARM.vmx

srwxr-xr-x  1 alan  staff    0  5 Dec 07:33 testAutomation-fd

srwxr-xr-x  1 alan  staff    0  5 Dec 07:33 vmx-live-fd

srwxr-xr-x  1 alan  staff    0  5 Dec 07:33 vmx-vigor-fd

srwxr-xr-x  1 alan  staff    0  5 Dec 07:33 vmx-vmdb-fd

/var/run/vmware/cnx-tmp:

total 0

drwx-wx-wt  2 root  daemon   64  5 Dec 07:33 .

drwxr-xr-x  6 root  daemon  192  5 Dec 07:33 ..

(base) alan@Alans-MBP ~ % 

[alan290]

>> If the Fusion GUI is running, then what you see in your output is not normal

Indeed it's not normal, as I had the GUI running, as well as the Win11 23H2 VM running.

>>Let me look at the USB arbitrator logs and see if I can see anything that might give a clue as to what's happening.

Thanks! It looks to me like the socket is created, but it definitely fails when it tries to connect.

>> "what changed between the time that the USB keys worked and now"?

That's the big question, and my honest answer is "I'm not really sure"! Yes, I've done updates to macOS and (possibly) Fusion (although I feel sure it worked under 13.6.1 previously). I took some time off during a move, didn't play around with the laptop or the VMWare side of things. After the failure of the USB to connect, I did have a bit of a catastrophe after trying to re-size the virtual disk (which failed) I accidentally deleted it by trying to remove the encryption. The actual incarnation of the VM I'm running now I pulled out of the TimeMachine backup from a few days prior - although I am not sure if that would make a difference, since it seems to be a macOS or Fusion app problem rather than a fault within the virtual windows environment.

One other thing - a big positive - that I can share apropos the real subject of this thread is that I went over to my desktop Mac Studio (also running latest macOS and latest VMware Fusion releases) and successfully upgraded its Win11 VM to 24H2 using the built-in "Check for Updates" under Windows -> Settings -> Windows Update. The 24H2 was offered as an available update, and (since that machine has a nearly empty 64GB hard drive) it just went smoothly with the installation. Subsequent to that, there were two other available updates (one for .Net iirc, and one November update to 24H2). So, as you predicted earlier, Microsoft has at last deemed VMs running under Fusion as "worthy". I experienced zero issues on that test experience, which I hope is useful to share with you and our community.

Thanks again, Paul. I will be happy to try anything you recommend, including removing VMware Fusion and starting again from scratch if that is the right path.

[Technogeezer]

Alan, thanks for verifying that the update as offered by Microsoft through Windows Update works. I haven't had a chance to try it as I'd upgraded my 23H2 VM from the 24H2 ISO downloaded from Microsoft.

Did you check in /Library/Logs/VMware to see if there were any vmware-usbarb*.log files? If not, what are the permissions on the /Library/Logs/VMware folder? (ls -ald /Library/Logs/VMware)

DId you get a chance to try running Fusion from a newly created account?

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[alan290]

Hi Paul -

On the Studio (which I upgraded to 24H2 since there was enough disk space for an in-place installation), things are different enough that it may be useful extra information, confirming your diagnostics.

1: ps -ef | grep vmware-usbarbitrator

    0  6886     1   0  3:20pm ??         0:00.03 /Library/Application Support/VMware/VMware Fusion/Services/Contents/Library/vmware-usbarbitrator

  501  6944  6898   0  3:25pm ttys000    0:00.01 grep vmware-usbarbitrator

So this, to me, looks as if the USB Arbitrator is running, per your original advice. With the VM running, if I go into the Virtual Machine -> USB -> USB Settings menu, I can see an attached external USB hard drive and I can choose to connect it to the VM, and it shows it as connected. As expected, the disk disappears from the macOS desktop (and re-appears as expected if disconnected from the VM via the Settings menu). Also, when I insert a USB disk the "what do you want to do" dialog pops up, and functions as expected - and indeed how I remember it running on the MacBook.

 

2a: On the Studio (with USB functionality) /Library/Logs/VMware has NO VMware-usbarb.log files (only VMware-vmrest*.log files); permissions for this folder show:

drwxr-xr-x  7 root  wheel  224  5 Dec 15:20 /Library/Logs/VMware 

2b: On the MacBook (without USB functionality) /Library/Logs/VMware also has only vmware-vmrest*.log files and permissions are:

drwxr-xr-x  8 root  wheel  256  4 Dec 20:13 /Library/Logs/VMware

 

3: About the only thing I can think of that's different between the MacBook (no USB) and Studio (yes USB) is that I have BitDefender installed on the MacBook but not on the Studio. I have tried all of the tests with BitDefender turned off and get the same results. But since we are looking at differences in files and permissions, it made me think to add this info to the conversation.

4: I have not yet tried running Fusion from a newly created account, and I'm not exactly sure what you mean: go back and register again on Broadcom with a different email / username and download everything fresh? Completely delete and then reinstall an entirely new VMWare Fusion on (say) my MacBook? If I do that, would I be able to keep a copy of my existing Win11 VM just by leaving it in the Virtual Machines folder (or by making a copy of it on an external drive, or doing a snapshot)? I can certainly do that process, as I'm mainly doing this for learning and to run one or two Windows-only programs (mainly my income tax filing software, which I don't need again for this year haha).

[alan290]

Paul -

I'm not sure if my user privilege causes my replies to be delayed, so here is an(other) update on my status, after your previous message and comparing a few things on the (working) Studio vs the (non-working) MacBook. There were some pretty big differences in the overall directory structure, and I wondered how that might affect things. One file that caught my eye was /Library/Application Support/VMware/Usbarb.rules (which is part of the "manually delete to clean up your VMware uninstall) but I don't even know what that does or why it would ever have changed... but I don't have it on the (working) Studio and as I say it caught my eye on the MacBook since the usbArb functionality was at the core of my problem. I was never able to find any vmware-usbarb*.log files (on either machine) either. 

Bottom line: I ended up doing a complete uninstall of VMware Fusion on my MacBook, then a fresh install (using my existing Broadcom login credentials)... and things seem to be working! I was able to launch my existing Win11 VM and it asked me where I wanted to connect the USB drive as expected. At present, I am using this external drive as the temporary storage location for doing the Windows Update installation of 24H2 and it's downloading and installing as expected. 

Thanks again for all your insights and advice. I am not sure what went wrong, and whether any of the cruft in my MacBook Fusion installation was leftovers from the various updates to previous versions or whatever. I am glad to have things working again and even happier that I was able to simply continue using my existing Win11 VM without totally re-creating and re-configuring that. Your help gave me a lot of confidence to just start over fresh, which seems to have done the trick. 

[Technogeezer]

Alan, glad you were able to figure this out.

Catching up on a couple of your posts:

What I meant for you to do when I was discussing "another account" was to create another user account on the Mac that exhibited the problem, log into it, and then try to open Fusion. Some times there's something buried in a user's profile on the Mac that keeps Fusion from running properly - and this test rules out that possibility.

I took a look at the contents of the usbarb.rules file on my system. It appears to be a list of devices that the USB arbitrator has found and where to connect them to (either host or VM). I'm making an assumption that this is where Fusion remembers the choices you've made when asked to connect a USB device to the Mac or the VM. 

I wonder if there was some corruption in that file that kept the usbarb background process from initializing properly.  If you have a Time Machine backup of containing that file, it might be interesting to restore it back to the Mac (in a different folder, of course) and examine it.

From time to time (especially if you have gone through multiple upgrades of Fusion versions and/or migrated an older Mac to a newer one using Apple's Migration Assistant) some "cruft" can be left behind. The full, manual uninstall/reinstall process cleans that up - which can be handy for troubleshooting as it resets things to a known good starting point (almost always...).

If you're running an anti-virus program (e.g. BitDefender) it might be worthwhile to see if it flagged the usbarb.rules as containing a virus and either quarantined it or tried to "fix" it. False positives are always possible with anti-virus solutions.

Good luck with your Windows upgrade!

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[billearl]

Paul, Please disregard my message about my failed attempt to update my Fusion VM from Win 11 23H2 to 24H2. I'm fairly sure it was a result of using an unofficial method of converting my Parallels VM to a Fusion VM. I'm now creating a new Fusion VM with Win 11 24H2 per your instructions, then will reinstall all my previous applications and files (unless there's a way to migrate that stuff).

[Technogeezer]

@billearl if you're going that route and you already have a Fusion VM converted from Parallels, you might want to think about adding that VM's hard drive to your new Fusion VM as a second hard drive after you've gotten the new one running. That will allow you to transfer your files (you'll still need to re-install apps). 

Before you give up, however, see if DISM and sfc checks pass on that converted VM, and that the Parallels guest tools are all removed. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[billearl]

Thanks, Paul. Without running DISM and sfc checks, I did see some traces of Parallels in the directory of my old Fusion VM (Win 11 23H2) converted from Parallels. My Parallels VM is now my "master" Windows 11 VM, by necessity, with the Fusion VM being a "hobby" that served me very well (after trying and rejecting Parallels years ago). So, with my most recent files residing in the Parallels VM, I just copied apps (archived installers) and files from Parallels to Fusion. I can have them both open at once (using a second screen) to copy or duplicate settings and files that are "buried" in non-obvious places. So far, so good with that but it will probably take a couple days. Thanks for your generous and very helpful advice, as always.

[Andrew Cheung]

Resolved my problem immediately! Thank you so much for the instructions! 

[HurcoMv]

Sorry if this is a really **** question, but I don't seem to be able find anywhere where you can get (I mean buy a legitimate one) a license key for Windows 11 Pro for  ARM. Maybe it's different in the USA (where I assume you are), or I'm missing something pretty basic. It seems that everyone has Windows 11 Pro 64-bit in several "flavours", but not ARM. Maybe the keys are not hardware specific.

Planning to upgrade my Intel MacBook Pro to Apple Silicon over Christmas and just getting a few things organised.

I've downloaded the ISO.

Thanks,

Mark.

[Technogeezer]

It's not a bad question. The keys are not architecture specific. Microsoft has stated that Windows 11 licenses (that includes retail Home and Professional licenses) will activate Windows 11 ARM. Just buy the Windows 11 license from a reputable vendor (or from the Microsoft Store once you've installed the ARM VM) and you're good to go. Or if you have a retail Windows 11 license on another PC that you aren't going to use any more, you can transfer it to ARM (it's really easy if you have the license tied to your Microsoft Account)> 

Just remember you can't take an OEM or system builder license that's installed on a PC and transfer it. The terms of the license say it's only valid on the system it's been installed on. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[HurcoMv]

Thanks for your quick reponse and that is good news.

[Gary Gauthier]

Be careful when buying licenses for virtual machines. Microsoft Windows treats each instance as if it were a unique physical machine. If you upgrade Windows installation and Microsoft later discontinues the online upgrade, the license will not allow you to create a new VM with the new version of Windows and then activate it with the key for the original version. You will also not be able to port an existing installation from a VM like Parallels and retain the activated status, because a new VM is created in the process. You will only be able to create a new VM with the original version of Windows and activate that. It does not matter if you have a retail license or not. Whether one has linked the license to your account also doesn’t affect the situation. I’ve had the problem, myself, when trying to transfer an upgraded VM from Parallels to Fusion.

Gary

[dminter]

Windows Update gave me this message today - Your version of Windows has reached the end of service. Trying to upgrade from existing 22H2 to 24H2. Downloaded the ISO ARM file.  After I mount it and double click the setup file, I get error "This app can't run on your PC.  To find a version for your PC check with your software publisher."  Running 13.6.1 on an Intel Mac.  No idea why I am still on 22H2 (instead of 23H2).  Any suggestions to get 24H2 installed?

[Technogeezer]

You say you are running an Intel Mac. That means your Windows 11 VM is running Windows 11 x86_64 (Intel]. You'll need the Windows 11 24H2 x86_64 media (start here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 ) . The ARM ISO won't work on an Intel Cpu, and that's what the error message is trying to tell you.

As far as why you're still on 22H2, its hard to say. Something from Microsoft didn't offer you the enablement package that  "turned on the switch " for 23H2. And Microsoft has been up front about 22H2 having an end of service date - ther "yearly releases" of Win 11 only receive updates for 2 years after they are released. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[dminter]

Wow, stupid me!  I completely forgot about the Window difference between Intel and Apple Silicone machines.  With your always-helpful advice, got 24H2 installed on both machines.  A bit of a science experiment - one glitch worth mentioning was the "installation assistant" did not work for me;  supposed to be the "easiest way" to install per Microsoft website.  Failed.  Mounting the ISO as you explained in earlier posts worked perfectly (after I increased my disk size - don't get why the VM needs 100GB for Windows 11 and nothing else, but that was the fix).  Many thanks as always! 

[Technogeezer]

I think the "extra" 10GB is that unilke the 22H2 to 23H2 upgrade, the 24H2 is a full OS swap. The installer wants to leave behind remnants of the old operating system -- I guess just in case you want to go back or the OS upgrade fails for some unforeseen issue.

22H2 -> 23H2 was an enablement package of a few KB. It just turned on latent code that had already been applied by prior updates.